It’s 2019, which marks Autostraddle’s tenth year of tenuous existence on this scorched earth! In honor of this occasion, everybody should join A+ and also our first theme issue of the year will be “Birthday.”

You can really go wild with this theme. You hear the word “birthday” and what do you think? Write that thought down, it could be an essay! Or perhaps a work of Real Journalism, or a humor piece, a photoessay, a comic. Here’s some topics that came into our minds: giving birth, aging, birthday parties, birthday-related pop culture (e.g., Sixteen Candles, the worst birthdays depicted on film, that depressing AIDS movie “It’s My Party,” the Lesley Gore song “It’s My Party”), birthday presents, astrology or birthday-adjacent celebrations (quinceañeras, sweet sixteens, bat mitzvahs), any stories that have birthdays in them.

Here are a collection of links that we think are good examples of what we’re looking for if all of them were more queer (some of them are but most of them are not):

Payment:

We are an independent publication currently hanging on for dear life! So our rates aren’t the best out there but relative to our budget they’re quite good. Depending on the piece (length, edits required, reporting involved if relevant), payment is between $50 – $200. Theme issues are also one of our favorite ways to find new regular contributors and staff writers — that’s how writers like Sarah Fonseca, Mey Rude and Reneice Charles first graced these pages. We are looking for new fashion writers in particular right now.

We are, as always, especially interested in submissions from trans women and people of color.

The deadline for submissions is January 22nd, but we will possibly be accepting things on a rolling basis, and will let you know by February 1st.